WWF predicts disease outbreak from global warming

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A World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report says global warming could trigger an explosion of life-threatening infectious diseases in areas where they presently do not occur.

The report, edited for the WWF and the United Nations by Dr Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School, says children and the elderly would be especially at risk.

The document cites malaria, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever and encephalitis among the diseases likely to crop up as global warming gases collect in the atmosphere. Dengue fever, for which there is no vaccine, already has been detected in northern Argentina and in Australia.

The mosquito-spread illness has appeared regularly in Asia for several years.